{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/66d9c19629a27e316730341c/6a553a229fd983917d102166?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King, Bilquis Evely & Matheus Lopes (2021)","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/66d9c19629a27e316730341c/1783968257952-49d9795a-8cad-43f4-afbd-2cc0dcdfeddf.jpeg?height=200","description":"<p><br></p><p>Collecting Issues is a monthly comic book book club. We have read the thing, you have read the thing, and there are spoilers all the way down.</p><p><br></p><p>This month Ben and Michael take on Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, collecting issues 1 to 8 of the 2021 DC Comics series by Tom King, Bilquis Evely, and Matheus Lopes.</p><p>King has been open that the pitch was True Grit in space, a mentor and mentee bound together by revenge, and the book delivers exactly that: Ruthye, a farm girl whose father is murdered by the mercenary Krem of the Yellow Hills, hires the most dangerous gun in the galaxy, and the most dangerous gun in the galaxy turns out to be Kara Zor-El.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>What we argue about:</strong></p><p><br></p><ul><li>Whether the morality holds. The inciting incident is one dead father and one poisoned dog, but by the midpoint Krem has been implicated in a galaxy's worth of genocide. Does the personal revenge story survive that escalation, or does the scale swallow it?</li><li>The Norman Rockwell segregation planet, and whether a comic can plausibly frame selling out your neighbours as the truest evil in a story this full of atrocity.</li><li>Ruthye as unreliable narrator. She writes like a Victorian novelist, talks like a Western, and behaves like an Arthurian knight. She also does not witness the two biggest set pieces in the book, which raises the question of what we are actually looking at when Supergirl fights a space dragon.</li><li>Comet the Super-Horse, first appearing in 1962, who is not a horse but a centaur named Byron, cursed by a wizard, gifted telepathy by Circe, and later beaming half-naked dream visions at a teenage Kara. Tom King brings him back and kills him off. We have questions.</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>The Art:</strong></p><p>Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes, and why this book does not work without them. Evely designs a costume that sidesteps the miniskirt exploitation that has defined the character since Action Comics #252 in 1959, and she renders alien worlds that feel genuinely alien rather than Guardians of the Galaxy shorthand. If you only credit the story to Tom King, you are missing the comic.</p><p><br></p><p>We close on James Gunn's Supergirl film with Milly Alcock, why \"Woman of Tomorrow\" got stripped from the title, and what the adaptation loses when it turns Krem from an ordinary man into a Hellraiser reject with plot armour.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Next month: Squadron Supreme (1985), issues 1 to 12. Old-school Marvel madness.</strong></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Next Month's Book:</strong> We are shamelessly riding the cinematic hype train! In preparation for the upcoming movie, we’ll be reading Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s incredible <strong>Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow</strong>.</p><p><br></p><p><a href=\"https://collectingissuespodcast.substack.com/p/absolute-giallo-arrow-a-very-disturbed?publication_id=3040872&amp;post_id=204281527&amp;isFreemail=false&amp;r=4esnc0&amp;triedRedirect=true\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Read our Absolute Green Arrow Essay</a></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Follow the Podcast:</strong></p><p><br></p><p><a href=\"https://discord.gg/CTKJr3j2jp\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Join the Discord and read along</strong></a></p><p><a href=\"https://collectingissuespodcast.substack.com/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Read Our Substack</strong></a></p><p><a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/collectingissues/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Follow us on Instagram</strong></a></p><p><a href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@collectingissues?lang=en\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Follow us on Tiktok</strong></a></p><p><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4JTsT8MXJtk5jr4sJxUpXQ\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Watch us on Youtube</strong></a> </p><p><br></p><p><strong>Time Stamps:</strong></p><p>00:00 Welcome to Collecting Issues</p><p>00:36 Spoilers and Banter</p><p>02:54 Tom King and Continuity</p><p>04:27 True Grit in Space</p><p>09:09 Meet Ruthye and Krem</p><p>10:48 Revenge Versus Responsibility</p><p>15:01 Racism Town and Rockwell Vibes</p><p>17:30 Krem and the Brigands Escalate</p><p>22:37 Supergirl History and Redesign</p><p>27:56 Tom King MacGuffins</p><p>32:34 Meta Finale and Ruthye Narration</p><p>34:59 Ruthye’s Unreliable View</p><p>36:58 Capturing Krem at Last</p><p>37:55 Temptation on the Beach</p><p>41:23 Comet’s Bizarre Backstory</p><p>46:28 Dog Lie and Moral Mess</p><p>51:24 Art That Elevates It</p><p>58:45 Final Verdicts and Themes</p><p>01:04:04 Movie Adaptation Changes</p><p>01:07:36 Wrap Up and Next Read</p><p><br></p>","author_name":"collectingissues"}